Adnah stood at the entrance to Erik's portion of the Freak tent, staring at the two people on the ground. He saw the little corpse humming softly, rocking gently with an apparently sleeping Arabella in his arms. The Freaks' eyes were closed, one hand absently smoothing over his sleeping captive's hair almost without even coming into actual contact with the dark strands. The scene was one of comfort and contentment, something completely unexpected and alien to what Adnah had thought he might find. He hadn't known what to expect seeing the titled Angel of Mercy in the same room as the Living Corpse… but it hadn't been this.
It was almost a poetic idea… except that it was so flesh-crawlingly disturbing.
He frowned, stalking into the tent and towering over Erik with the best intimidating stance he could muster. The freak opened his eyes and looked up at him without much more than a passing curiosity, waiting to be spoken to. His almost total indifference made Adnah nearly see red.
He didn't like seeing the Freak holding Arabella – or even touching her. Part of him felt the girl belonged to him… and to see her in such a quiet and peaceful moment with a Corpse – of all things – was utterly disgusting. Still… there was something about her that seemed to not fit the peaceful picture. It softened the jealousy building in him.
"Give her to me." Adnah hissed, reaching down towards Arabella commandingly.
Erik glanced down at Arabella, still rocking her and humming. It was clear by the way his already disgusting face twisted, that he was reluctant to do as he was told. Adnah leaned even closer and grabbed beneath one of Arabella's arms to turn her body and lift her up into his own arms. He wasn't trying to be cruel, but he was determined to be efficient.
Arabella's eyes flew open and she gasped breathlessly as she tried to focus on the room that nearly spun around her. She managed to see Adnah over her, and he felt her body go rigid as he swept one arm fully under her back and tried to place the other beneath her knees. Across her body, Erik was raising higher on his knees, trying to keep her in a reasonably comfortable position as he surrendered her to the gypsy who clearly saw it as his right to take her away.
"No!"
Both men were startled by the piercing tone of her voice as she reached up and tried to push away from her fellow gypsy. Adnah nearly lost his grip on her, and squeezed instinctively to keep her from falling. Erik rose instantly to his full height and tried to place a hand on her arm in comfort. But Arabella squirmed, flinching simultaneously from his touch as well as Adnah's constraining arms.
"Let me go!" she half-shouted, as one of Adnah's arms slipped and released her legs so that her feet landed on the ground with dull thuds. Erik took a large step back, instantly glaring at Adnah as though he were the one responsible for her terror… which, obviously, he'd at least triggered with how he woke her. Arabella shoved her unwitting captor even harder, stumbling backward to freedom and nearly tripping over her own feet just to fall back into Erik – who stretched his arms out to either side in preparation for such an event. As it was, she was mere inches from him when she managed to straighten, turning to look between the two males uncertainly.
"Are you… all right?" Erik asked uneasily, his voice a low murmur.
Her eyes stopped their restless pacing, and locked on him with just a little less wariness. He wondered for a moment if he'd spoken in his own language, because she didn't seem to understand. Then, lowering her eyes, she gave a brief nod and turned to the exit. The shawl he'd wrapped back around her shoulders had fallen loose in her struggle, but she pulled it tightly back around herself as she walked cautiously from the room.
Adnah and Erik stared after her in confusion, until it was clear she wasn't going to turn around and speak to either of them. The gypsy turned to his captive, and sighed.
"Into your cage." He told Erik simply. "Now."
Arabella marveled at herself as she wandered the campground. Going back to her own tent and sleeping under the same roof as her father was not an option, nor was going to her grandmother. Tsifia would want to know what had happened, and Arabella was not at all certain she was up for any part of that conversation. She would probably find a grassy place to sleep under the stars, and sleep until the activities of morning drew her from dreams. But until the dreams could claim her, she could only wonder at her strange behavior in Erik's tent.
She wasn't surprised that she'd sat still while he touched her. She'd gone after him for assistance, after all, and he'd been required to touch her to follow through with his desire to help. She, in turn, needed to sit still. No… it wasn't her ability to sit still while the boy she was so used to seeing behind bars – who'd knocked her unconscious and escaped the very first time they met – laid his careful hands on her and applied salves and bandages. It was her reaction to his touch, and the soothing cadences of the song he'd crooned. It had been like… like floating on billowing clouds just at sunset, with a depthless rich blue overhead and hues of gold, pink, and magenta beside and below. It had brought her so far from the world she inhabited… and she actually wondered while enjoying its' effects if it was possible to become dependent on just a voice.
She had felt so comforted, in spite of the remaining pain that she'd leaned against Erik as though he were the strong man who should have been there to care for her and comfort her… the father she didn't have or the brother who never was. To put that much trust in a male she barely knew, so that she drifted off to sleep in a circle of warm but scrawny arms… She'd awakened with a jolt not just because of Adnah's inconsiderate behavior, but because she didn't remember falling asleep at all.
She hadn't even had dreams or nightmares… not that she could recall, at least.
She wondered how long she'd been asleep in that red tent, surrounded by its hellish hues, rocked like a babe in the comforting arm of a boy near her own age; that asked virtually nothing beyond what any human would request. He hadn't needed to sing her to sleep and comfort her. He could have tended her wounds, considered her kindnesses to him repaid, and sent her away without batting an eyelash.
She sank to the ground behind a random tent and curled up on her side, pillowing her head on one arm and closing her eyes in continued exhaustion.
She'd been physically touching a man – a very young man but still a man – and not been absolutely terrified of what he might ask of her.
It seemed Erik's gifts were never ending. Certainly, she didn't want him to make a real habit of touching her, and she doubted she'd have been so comfortable in casual circumstances… but just to feel that comfortable once in her life was a miracle.
Tsifia jolted awake, gasping for air as the nightmare spilled away like wine from a bottle. It left an oily, dirtied sensation in her mind, even as the gentle sounds of early morning and the surprisingly warm light of dawn drifted in like wafts of smoke to ease her. Her eyes peered anxiously about the tent, searching for danger from leftover intuition that had followed her from the land of dreams. She was confused by the smell of strong coffee, which was something she usually didn't indulge in personally. But, after a moment, she could make out the shape of her granddaughter huddle in the corner, a large blanket from her trunk wrapped around the young woman in spite of the morning warmth.
"What are you doing here so early, chavi?" she croaked, pausing to clear her throat as she sat up and swung her feet over the edge of the cot that had been procured when her arthritis first started settling in. It still wasn't terrible yet – thank God for small favors – but on some mornings it might have been nearly impossible to rise up from a pallet on the ground. "Are you ill? You could have roused me."
The figure shifted and straightened, but it wasn't the lovely caramel of Arabella's eyes that met hers. Instead the eyes that looked out at her were dark, velvet brown that always made Tsifia think of rabbits in spring. They were the eyes of her daughter, Noleta, and they were red-rimmed from long hard tears, baggy from exhaustion, and nearly dead from within.
"What?" Tsifia found herself asking in confusion.
"I can't do it anymore…" the woman whispered, closing her eyes and turning her face away from her mother in shame. "I can't protect my child, Madre. My little Bella… my Aminta…"
"Oh, get up girl." Tsifia groused, turning to look for the coffee her daughter had clearly brought with her. Although she still loved her daughter, it was no longer with the softness and understanding she'd once possessed. "You're drunk and feeling sorry for yourself – as usual. I know your husband is a royal bastard and oily snake, but you could have taken him in hand at any time, or turned him over to the Kris Romani."
"Are you mad?" Noleta gasped, as Tsifia hose a heavy mug and poured some delightfully black coffee before settling back onto a nearby stool. She stared into the tiny fire her daughter had created to make the coffee, wondering if the strong drink had been made as a peace offering of some form or another. "Yaakov can't be managed by anyone! And if they banished him, they would banish me for allowing it all! My child wouldn't know you or her lineage… her people-"
"You could have given her to me." Tsifia pointed out. "Now she won't even come to me from all that fear you've poisoned her with since this all started. You've been so concerned all this time about your own ability to remain with this family and have your gaje husband, too! God forbid your daughter stand a chance at happiness by being taken away from you!"
Tsifia felt guilty and enraged sobs building, but she refused to let them show in front of her daughter. The woman was rising from her blanket, as skinny as a reed and as sickly looking as a poisonous toadstool. The selfish thing was weeping, just as she often did when berated, but Tsifia refused to give into the sniveling again. Her daughter had been a woman for too many years to continue coddling her like a babe whenever her guilty conscience got drawn out by the booze. Her tears meant nothing.
"You and that ruv have done everything to keep Arabella from being included in the encampment! She could have been raised by all of us, as is proper, instead of by your scheming and greedy gaje! And I had to stand by virtually helpless just to keep from terrifying the poor child any further!"
"Mother…" the woman pleaded, holding her hands out. "Please… mother… she's not in our tent. My little girl is gone!"
That drew Tsifia up short just before she was about to lose control of her tears. Her eyes shot up angrily to her daughter as her skin grew suddenly cold.
"What?" she hissed.
The Woman swallowed hard under the hard gaze of her mother.
"Arabella… she… she wasn't home last night when I turned in for the night. She never came home… The place was a wreck… like there'd been a real row… and Yaakov was just lying there, sleeping and snoring like a contented babe."
Tsifia rose to her feet, cursing the twinge in her back that reminded her she was no longer quite so young.
"Your husband… was sleeping… in your tent…" she asked slowly, working it out carefully to be certain her undoubtedly hung-over daughter was making sense. "When you came home? He was alone, and the place was a wreck as though he'd taken his rage out on everything you owned?"
Her daughter nodded meekly.
"I didn't think much about it last night." She admitted, her voice choking with emotion. "She often goes away when he's in one of his moods… but she always comes home to sleep – or she comes here. That's why I came here this morning. I woke up needing to… but she wasn't home. I thought maybe she'd be here, but she's gone!"
Tsifia glowered at her daughter… a woman who no longer warranted a name, she'd been so thoroughly overtaken by her husband over the years.
"You came here this early to tell me this, so that no one would know what the trouble was." She accused. "You're afraid of what we may or may not find."
Her daughter bowed her head.
"Please, Mother." She begged. "I know you hate me, but please help me! I've never been so scared for her before! What if he's done something?"
"As though he hasn't done something nearly every day of that poor girls' life…" Tsifia grumbled, turning away to grab up a purple dicklo to wrap her hair. "Mark my words, girl, if he's hurt her… if my sweet girl is dead or nowhere to be found… you will be banished with that damnable monster you call a husband!"
Her daughter followed her from the tent, and they began to walk the grounds together in silence. Tsifia refused to give into the same overdramatic hysterics of her daughter, who kept whimpering anytime she saw so much as an unidentified shadow, and wring her hands in anxiousness. Her own heart was pounding in terror on behalf of her granddaughter, but she was at least reasonably sure she would find her granddaughter alive and in 'one piece'. Yaakov was too cunning to murder his own child and try to conceal the body. It wouldn't take long before Tsifia would turn the entire camp on him, and he damn well knew it.
The Woman tried to speak to her in hushed whispers, rattling off her apologies and concerns and explanations to deliberately deaf ears. She was shivering in spite of the heat of the morning, but Tsifia couldn't find it in herself to be too deeply concerned. Her daughter could have come down with something, but considering she was walking and perfectly energetic made her far less likely to worry. She was much more preoccupied with fearing what Yaakov might have done to Arabella. Her granddaughter had a great deal of courage and gumption… but physically speaking she was not half so strong as even her own mother was after all the years she'd spent trying to drink away her guilt and shame.
They found her lying behind the tsera of the clan ruler, and Tsifia swore under her breath. If she could have had her own way without upsetting Arabella, she might have started railing at her daughter then and there, making certain the entire gypsy camp knew about Yaakov and his dealings before the sun reached its' apex in the sky. Instead, knowing Arabella deeply – and needlessly at her age – feared being banished with her disgusting parents, the woman crouched by her granddaughter and gently shook her until her unusually dark eyelids fluttered open a crack.
Arabella gave a slight moan of query, peering up at her grandmother as though she barely had the strength to breathe – never mind waken and move.
"Are you all right, child?" she asked gently.
Arabella managed a miniscule nod, her eyes wandering slightly in confusion at where she found herself.
Noleta crouched next to Tsifia, making the older woman stiffen.
"What are you doing out here, child?" she demanded, her relief quickly turning to a seething anger. It was a reaction Tsifia knew all too well. She'd often reacted that way herself in her much younger days. Had it not been for Yaakov, her daughter might have outgrown it, too. "You should be home in your own Tsera, not sleeping out in the dew and grass!"
Arabella moaned softly, one arm escaping the shawl that Tsifia was only starting to realize – with intense alarm – was covered in bloodstains. Her forearms were covered with light bruises as she rubbed at her eyes to get the sleep out of them.
"There is grass in the tent." She murmured, showing a hint of her usual gumption… something she didn't often offer up to either of her parents. "Outside… inside… what does it matter?"
She was pulled almost roughly into a sitting position by her mother, and Tsifia hurriedly took her daughter by the shoulder to slow her down. She was paying much more attention to the condition her granddaughter was in, and she could see the bandages wrapping a great deal of her skin. Her daughter barely seemed to register anything amiss at all now that her daughter had been found alive and seemingly well.
"What happened to you?" Tsifia demanded gently.
Her daughter looked between Arabella and Tsifia in confusion; although Tsifia was relieved the woman finally seemed concerned as well, although it was a distant and barely interested thing.
Arabella swayed slightly before managing to catch up to her body's position and looked up at her grandmother blearily.
"I'm all right." She mumbled. "I'm all right… I'm just… so tired…"
"Then come." Tsifia offered, taking her granddaughter by the wrists and pulling her up to her feet, her daughter helping by pressing a hand to Arabella's back without seeming to notice how badly her child flinched at the touch. "You can sleep in my tent. A few hours of extra rest will hardly hurt anyone."
Arabella glanced uneasily at her mother, clearly confused by her presence. Tsifia's daughter had hardly ever been what one would call a 'hands on' mother. Until Tsifia's husband died, the girl had been raised by her grandparents more than her own parents. Then, once there was no intimidating male in the picture to make Yaakov feel like the whipped and cowardly dog he was, he'd taken his daughter back into their overbearing and abusive hands.
"My father-"Arabella protested.
"Your mother will take care of him." Tsifia stated harshly. "Won't you, girl?"
"Y-yes…" The Woman agreed uneasily. "You go and rest, my child. Your father won't give you any grief for one morning of lost income."
Tsifia glowered darkly at her daughter as she walked away with Arabella under a comforting arm that didn't quite touch her shoulders. Once the woman was far behind them, she leaned in towards her granddaughters' ear.
"Tell me everything." She commanded.
Madre: (Spanish) mother
Kris Romani: A Trial composed of adult elder gypsies
Ruv: Wolf
Tsera: Tent, household